US may rethink Iran approach if no deal in ‘foreseeable future’ | Al Jazeera

Washington may need to rethink its approach to Iran if the serious differences between the two countries on resuming compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal cannot be resolved “in the foreseeable future”, a senior US official said on Thursday.

“We still have serious differences … over the host of issues, whether it’s the nuclear steps that Iran needs to take to come back into compliance, the sanctions relief that the US would be offering or the sequence of steps that both sides would be taking,” the official told reporters on a conference call.

“This process is not going to be open forever,” the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity the Reuters news service reported.

“We do have differences and if we can’t bridge them in the foreseeable future, I think we are going to have to regroup and figure out how we … move ahead.”

A sixth round of indirect talks between the US and Iran adjourned on Sunday, two days after hardliner Ebrahim Raisi, the Iranian judiciary chief who is subject to US sanctions, was elected president of Iran. Raisi is due to take office in August.

The official said the US delegation expected to return to Vienna for a seventh round in the not-too-distant future, but he did not know when – suggesting the key factor would be internal Iranian consultations following Raisi’s election.

Iran struck a deal with major powers in 2015 to curb its uranium enrichment programme, a possible pathway to nuclear arms, in return for the lifting of US, European Union and UN sanctions.

Former US President Donald Trump abandoned the deal in 2018 and reimposed harsh sanctions, prompting Tehran to start violating some of the nuclear limits in 2019 while sticking to its position that it had no nuclear weapons ambitions. US President Joe Biden is seeking to revive the agreement.